said to himself.

CHAPTER XVI

If Audry Ferris “worshipped” people who are “big” she must have prostrated herself in adoration before the mammoth bulk of Miranda, the camp cook, who held sway in the cottage. No spiritual reasons had directed Miranda’s choice of this residence. She was there because she was there. And she was very much there. No white person ever was, or ever could be, as large in circumference as Miranda. To Tom the muslin girdle which encircled her waist seemed like the equator.

“Some day when you have a little time take a trip around her,” said Ferris to Tom.

The cottage, like the hotel, was held fast by iron rods reaching slantingways from the eaves all around and securely anchored in the rocks. The very security of these auxiliary holds gave one a feeling of insecurity that such outlandish makeshifts should be necessary to ensure the safety of a house.

It was all but dark when they arrived and a late supper was served them in the little living room of the cottage. It was very cozy eating there.

Tom could not reconcile himself to the incongruity of Miranda living in the cottage, she was so large and the cottage so small. She would have seemed more appropriately placed in the big barnlike structure nearby. Her hospitality was as large as her person and she informed Tom that whatever he required Auntie Mirandy was the one to see.

Her abounding maternalism included the whole camp, the one disturbing element in her comfortable employment being a rooted conviction that the old hotel was haunted.

“Heered ’em?” she vociferated in answer to Tom’s inquiry. “Lor’ I seed ’em, honey. I seed ’em wid my own eyes; Lord o’ mercy yes. I seed ’em runnin’.”

She had long since served supper to the group of hungry workers over in the kitchen of the big hotel. It was the custom of two or more of these to come over to the cottage and carry back the huge caldron and other utensils containing the meal for all.

Often, when Tom saw this steaming caldron, filled with stew or chowder, being borne across the littered, shaving covered space to the hotel, he felt that he would like to be among that miscellaneous band who dined in such primitive fashion among themselves. They bunked in three or four of the ground floor rooms and gathered on a back porch in one of the wings to chat and smoke away the evenings.

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